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“Buddy Mart”, the community’s favourite store model, raises charm of ownership community relations, Makro’s expertise & partners, uplifts community economy

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2022

Makro officially unveils “Buddy Mart” community business model overcoming obstacles in attaining investment loans for Shohuay stores; strengthens the original charm; focuses on community needs and preferences for a large selection of well-known brands; catering to customers via Makro’s Big Data and utilizing its 33-year extensive experience and accumulated expertise in handling Shohuay businesses.

Mr. Ekapol Koosuwan, Project Lead – FR Transformation Buddy Mart Business Partner, said, “Buddy Mart is a community business model which has been developed into a successful formula under the concept “ครบ คุ้ม เพื่อนคู่ใจชุมชน” aimed at becoming everyone’s trusted buddy. What is important is to maintain the charm of Shohuay stores by emphasizing original owership and further strengthening relationships within the community. With the technology and Makro’s expertise in utilizing the data base for more than 33 years, Makro can truly understand the customer needs. At this official opening, we have joined hands with an important financial partner – Bangkok Bank – who assists in investments thus making it possible for Buddy Mart’s business partners to acquire up to 100% loans as well as repay by installments during an extended period of 5  years. This helps overcome lack of liquidity challenges and provides eligibility to take out loans to improve the Shohuay stores.

“Makro’s experience of working with more than 500,000 Shohuay, provides Buddy Mart a significant data base, in-depth knowledge and expertise in adjusting products in Shohuay stores to boost sales. Another focus is highlighting the charm of original ownership of Shohuay for example, leveraging on the close relationship with the community to craft a programme to boost sales at the stores on a continuous basis. In other words, the store owner can rely on Buddy Mart to help manage the store. In terms of community relations which is very important in running a Shohuay store, the store owner will be even stronger than before by using the marketing tools provided by us.”

Apart from this, selection of products that are suitable for the community is another important sale boosting factor at Buddy Mart stores.  We found that although popular brand names would normally attract customers to the stores, each store needs to choose products that cater to customers in that particular area and surroundings.  Makro therefore joins hands with well-known brands such as Thai Namthip, Unilever, P&G, Nestle to offer special deals at Buddy Mart stores whereas other business networks focus on selling their house brands only and launching promtoions on a continuous basis.

“Currently, there is tremendous interest in the Buddy Mart business model due to our expertise and impressive track record of over 33 years in the management of retail store. To reduce the cost from over-stocking, Buddy Mart has designed a system where orders can be placed with more frequency, up to 4 deliveries per week. The store owner can also adjust orders to better suit customer demands. 

With Buddy Mart business model and support, store owner can achieve 40% increase in their average sales,” Mr. Ekapol said in conclusion.

Another important strategy by Buddy Mart to draw more traffic to the store is the installation of other various services such as cash machine, automatic coffee machine and automatic washing machine. Future plans include sale of local products in the stores to drive businesses within the community, and strengthen the country’s trade and economy.